IT Insider Secrets Series

This episode is for CEOs, Presidents, CFOs, or COOs who are in the position of needing to hire a key IT position in their organization for which they have little background or training to evaluate potential candidates. Let's get into it.

Whew, your last person is gone. Boy, they were too abrasive, too talkative, too brainiac, too quiet or whatever your “too” is. “This time, I am going to find a friendly, outgoing person who can talk the language of our business”, says you. So, you set out to hire a fix for your last problem, instead of the person you actually need. Instead, this is the time to hire your go forward CIO.

Pause for a moment. In many cases I have seen, the CIO did not work out because of organizational issues that need to be addressed. Demands that were not in alignment with the needed funding top the list. IT is a knowledge game. Uncompetitive salaries, artificial staff caps and uninteresting work goals will surely mean you have challenges with your IT staff. Harsh demanding internal customers or peers of the CIO that didn’t get addressed by you are a sure morale killer. At fast growth companies, did you expand past the capability level of your IT leader? Do you have the right level target for your next person? Perhaps you could have taken action earlier and built a smoother transition. Or did you hire someone from the outset whose skills didn’t match actual requirements, such as a strong businessperson who didn’t have the requisite IT background. Were you underpaying the market, and someone snatched away your happy employee? Take the moment to address why the last person didn’t work out and fix that first.

One source of feedback is people in your own IT organization. Many staff members may be reticent to tell you like it is, but some will. Some may write you a email if you ask them to. Listen to your current IT team for clues. They can tell you what the real issues are and what to look for in a new candidate. Tap into these second tier IT Leaders.

Hiring hints to achieve your goals

You have a look at a number of CIO job descriptions on the internet and piece together a job description. The new person will “Provide Leadership for all IT, manage the applications team, infrastructure, the help desk, information security and work with the Executive Team”. Congratulations. You have just described the job of a CIO for any company. Yawn. Your company has something interesting and exciting to offer the right person. Challenging projects, new leadership opportunities or that special something that will attract a higher level of talent and enthusiasm in your next IT leader. Identify this thing and put it in the job description.

?Some believe a way to save money for your organization is by using title inflation. Mixing high level and low level IT activities into one position description is confusing and off-putting. A good CIO is not going to fix your server, code your program or configure your routers. Insistence on hands on skills such as Microsoft office products, Javascript programming, a certain type of database or data network certifications will surely get you an individual contributor who wants to be a manager someday. You are looking for an orchestra leader, not an instrument player.

Finally, size does make a difference. It is remarkable how many job descriptions do not give any indication of IT staff size or budgets. Yet most CIO resumes I have seen show the size the of staff or budgets that they have managed. A CIO who has managed a staff of fifty is a significantly different profile than one that has experience managing a staff of five hundred. ?

Hiring hints to achieve your goals

You need trusted sources. Ideally before you have even lost your current leader.

Discuss the role with your organization’s key stakeholders, including department heads, senior management, and IT staff, in the selection process. Their input can provide valuable insights into the specific needs and challenges of the organization and ensure buy-in for the new IT leader.

If you can, borrow experts from other organizations or former CIOs who would be willing to help interview or perhaps they even know of candidates themselves. Perhaps trusted vendors or business colleagues can make recommendations on expert sources for you. I can’t tell you the number of times that CIOs appointed to positions are well known and competing against friends in the industry and the hiring company has no idea.

Explore the potential for internal candidates to step up into the IT leadership role. The chances of identifying this move-up person may be small, but internal promotions can certainly boost morale, retain institutional knowledge, and provide continuity.

If sourcing an external candidate is your chosen path, the type of recruiting channels you use has a great impact on the types of candidates you will attract. Job sites such as LinkedIn or Indeed.com can be useful, as long as you have your own competent screening process. You will likely need to sort through many inappropriate resumes to find that needle in a haystack, then actually filter through the remaining candidates to find those gems you are looking to interview. And frankly most companies do not have these capabilities in-house for a CIO level role.

Another choice might be an incumbent IT technical recruiter who is familiar with your organization and has already placed other technical leaders or hands on tech people with your company in the past. Your second tier IT Managers know who these people are. A word of caution, however. Recruiters whose mainstream work is placing technical staff can be a gold mine of knowledge of CIOs who are on the market or maybe their knowledge ends at the technician level. Use a bit of judgement here, as technical recruiters generally travel in different circles than do recruiters of IT Executives. Generalized office worker staffing companies are usually not a go to provider for the kind of person you want.

?One further option is to engage an interim IT executive, who will fill in the management gap, and could potentially help with your IT strategy and direction, help clarify your needs, as well as assist with hiring your full-time CIO. Consider an interim leader that is at an even higher level than you need long term but who can really give you a leg up with your IT operation and will help you avoid the pressure of hiring a new CIO too quickly.

Another option is to engage a “retained recruiter” who focuses on IT leaders as one of their specialty areas. These recruiters are top in their field, they will help put focus into your hiring efforts, help you clarify your needs and can find you that needle in a haystack.